McDonalds volunteers join forces with Plymouth City Council to spruce up the coast

Local franchisee David Wynne and crew from his McDonald’s restaurants in Plymouth recently teamed up with Plymouth City Council to clean up the local area.

The group embarked on the challenge to give the Jennycliff area and surrounding coastal paths a much-needed refresh. The location was chosen by the volunteers due to its status as an area of great natural beauty, enjoyed regularly by local residents. The team consisted of 15 staff members and managers, who collected a total of 11 bags of litter.

This event is just one of a number of McDonald’s clean-ups taking place across the UK as part of its anti-littering campaign, ‘Love Where You Live’. The campaign continues to encourage local communities to take action and work together to tackle litter in their area, and forms part of a twelve-year partnership between McDonald’s and Keep Britain Tidy.

In addition to larger scale litter events such as this, McDonald’s is committed to finding ways to reduce, reuse and recycle in its restaurants and across its whole business:

For over 35 years in the UK, McDonald’s staff have carried out at least three litter patrols every day in the areas around their restaurants, collecting all the litter they find regardless of its origin

Since May 2018, McDonald’s UK has been testing paper straws in five of its UK restaurants. Plastic straws will also be taken behind the counter, which aims to reduce the amount used and encourages customers to reconsider whether they need a straw.

This year, McDonald’s UK celebrates a decade of powering its delivery fleet with recycled biodiesel from cooking oil. Delivery lorries are 100% powered by biodiesel – 40% of which is taken from cooking oil sourced from McDonald’s UK restaurants.

McDonald’s franchisee David Wynne who owns 12 restaurants across Cornwall and Devon said: “I was proud to see everyone come together and help tidy up Plymouth’s coastal path. It’s a key priority of ours to ensure that the local area remains free of litter and an enjoyable place to live, work and visit. As a business we understand the important role that we play in making the area a cleaner place for everyone.”

Crew members across the UK cover a total of 3,000 miles each week on litter patrols, which equates to approximately 150,000 miles a year.

McDonald’s is also making changes in-store, with over 1,000 of its UK restaurants having front-of-house recycling facilities in which all packaging, including paper cups, can be separated in order for them to be recycled.

Keep Britain Tidy chief executive Allison Ogden-Newton said: “To win the war on litter everyone needs to work together, with businesses having an exciting part to play. McDonald’s Love Where You Live initiative, together with their day-to-day commitment to tackling the problem through their litter patrols and their ongoing support Keep Britain Tidy, is an example of how a business can make a real difference."

Since McDonald’s began supporting the ‘Love Where You Live’ campaign in 2010, over 2,600 events and activity days have been organised by restaurant staff in the UK, involving over 80,000 volunteers. 2017 saw 430 events take place within the UK, with a total of around 10,000 people taking part.

In addition to the annual Keep Britain Tidy litter events and daily patrols, many restaurants have also now begun to get involved in events such as painting walls and replanting trees and flowers that improve local community areas.